How words can impact your mind and body

Language is a powerful tool which brings people together and help understand each other. But unfortunately it can also be used as a weapon when put between mischievous hands. Since it is easier for a lot of people to criticize rather than giving compliments, words can be extremely harmful.

By the way I, Fanny, am writing this blog. But I can also speak for Juliette as she also got hurt from people’s comments when she was younger!

Like most people I am lacking self-confidence from time to time. Not about my body, more about my skills and intellect (this will be for another blog though 😬). I feel very fortunate I was able to accept and love how my body looks like naturally, but it wasn't always the case! It took me many years to realize that all the beauty standards I grew up with were BS and how to reclaim my own beauty. Honestly photography helped a lot and I am really glad I chose that path!

I used to wish to be curvier, taller, have thicker wrists, have a perfect skin… I was wishing to be different not only because of what I was seeing in magazines or tv, but also because people around me were criticizing me about my body.

When your loved ones are not so loving

Juliette was criticized for being overweight, I was criticized for being skinny and short:

-“You look like a garden gnome hahaha!”

- “I should not talk about that in front of you! What are you, 14 or so?” (I was 22 😢)

- “Are you not ashamed of not having boobs?”

- “Are you sure you don't suffer from anorexia?”

… I could keep going on and on.

Most of those awful sentences came from friends or people I knew, and every time they broke me into thousand pieces. Until a classmate told me the worst one someone could ever say to me “your mom should be so ashamed for giving birth to an anorexic girl. What an embarrassment!”.

That sentence was a wake up call! Like Juliette, I had a “F**k that! Never again” moment and told myself that I will never let words put me down ever again.

Relax, it was just a joke!

That famous: “I was joking!”… I am pretty sure we can all relate right? And maybe we did it too without realizing we hurt someone. We don’t know if it was the same for you but Juliette and I grew up in France where sarcasm is very common. People from the same family and friends pocked each other, made jokes about the way they look or their personality, and ended up with a "you are so sensitive, it was just a joke!” if the person was hurt or taking it the wrong way. We were both victims of those comments that could be soul crushing.

And yes maybe it was just a “joke”, but for some reason that day those words sticked to your mind. Maybe it wasn’t the first time you heard those words or maybe you were already having a bad day and was feeling a down. When a loved one tells you several times how overweight they think you are or how an idiot you can look like, even if they say it with a touch of humour, you ended up believing those words and less in yourself.

When the critics come from yourself!

Raise your hand if you have ever called yourself stupid. Raise your hand if you have ever looked at your reflection in the mirror with a disgusted look on your face. Raise your hand if you have ever been unkind to yourself! Are you raising both hands right now and need a third one? Yep, me as well :(

Self-criticism is so common! It is very easy to be harsh with our body and our mind, yet the things we tell ourselves we would never tell that to someone else. So why this need of self-harm and sabotage?

What we want you to do from now on is to talk to yourself the same way you would talk to your best friend.

Start seeing your body as a friend who needs love instead of seeing it as an enemy. Kindness is not only meant to comfort others!

It is hard to detach ourselves from the negative things people can tell us or have told us in the past because it is painful. But the truth is that people have the tendency to project their own insecurities on you rather than dealing with their problems. So the next time someone criticize you, remember there is a big chance that person is just showing how they really think about themselves in a specific situation.

Once you get that, people’s hurtful words will not affect you anymore!

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You can say "no" and people will still like you.

Since we opened Scandaleuse, we have been shaking the Earth for opportunities. One of our motto is “if you don’t ask, you don’t get”, so we jump right in with our no-BS mentality and 90% of the time, we get positive results. But sometimes, we cannot get a simple yes or no answer for the life of us.

A lot of people are incapable of saying “no”. Why is it so hard to reject an offer, to set boundaries and decline something you can’t or don’t want to commit to directly? If you are one of these people, do read the following!

You won’t be offending anyone. (and if they are, honestly, they need to grow up)

The #1 reason for not being able to say “no” is the fear to offend the person you are refusing something to. Maybe you like them, you’d love to help, you’d like to be able to swing whatever they are asking and if you were to say no, they will be disappointed, let down and -dear God- they won’t like you anymore.

Trust me, I am the one person that cannot stand not being liked by someone. I am Reliable Girl and it crushes my heart if you don’t like me. (I am working on it). But there is something even more important to me when it comes to other people: I treat them the way I want to be treated, with mutual respect.

To me, being honest with this specific person and admitting you won’t be able to do whatever they need you to do is showing respect.

Respect of their time. It definitely does not showcase a lack of feelings or care to them, it is just letting them off the hook so they can replace you, organize themselves and avoid endless awkward follow-ups with you.

don’t be the cause of multiple follow-ups.

On the business side of things, you have no idea how many times we follow up with people on a weekly basis. It feels like we need to babysit people constantly, and it is a huge waste of time when we finally get a “no”. Are we disappointed? Not so much. Are we annoyed because you stayed on our to-do list for weeks? A little. We are not psychic, so until you put on your big girl pants to say a definite and clear answer, we will keep asking.

The truth is, you are likely to lose credibility as a person or a business by making people wait around.

We have reached out to companies we truly admired and got led on a potential opportunity for weeks. It ended up not working out and it stained our perception of them. It just shows us you really don’t give a crap, which can be okay too, after all you can’t care about everything, but ignoring us or leading us on makes us feel like dummies. And if I feel like a dummy through your behavior, I will never come back and I will also never spread a good word around.

So truly, saying “no” can be a proof of reliableness, which is one of the best quality anyone could have.

Don’t make me feel like you are waiting for better options.

Ah. The biggest problem in our generation. People wait to see if they have better options before giving you a definite answer. They like to keep their options open. Blame it on the FOMO (the Fear Of Missing Out) movement.

But on the receptive line of this, how do you think I feel if you throw a bunch of maybe’s at my face and then cancel my plans for something else? Like crap. Like my ideas don’t matter to you, they aren’t worth your time. This also applied if you leave me hanging and don’t show up.

How to behave in society so you keep your friends and your business

Rant over, let’s get to the actual advice.

By all means, please decline an offer if:

• You have too much on your plate. If you already don’t know how you could possibly fit this inquiry in your schedule, be honest and decline it. It’s way better than half-assing it or worse, not even show up.

• You really don’t want to do it. It’s that simple. If you get an off feeling by just hearing the favor, that’s not a good sign. And no, laziness is not a good excuse, but feeling overwhelmed and uncomfortable are.

• It’s just not a good time. Bad-timing is a real thing, you are not Wonderwoman. For your own sanity, you can’t accomodate everyone and maybe it is time you put yourself first.

Note: don’t be a dick when you decline something but be honest. Honesty is always appreciated. Remember: mutual respect.

What are the benefits of saying no?

• You won’t look like a fool. If anything, you may gain respect for not wasting people’s time.

• You can take better care of yourself. By not overscheduling yourself, you can take a breather and put your health, your mental state back into first position in your life, just like the way it should be.

• You actually become reliable. You’ve set boundaries and people know they can expect honesty from you, that you will actually be here if you can help. You are building trust and it is the hardest feeling to build with someone.

So there you go, no more excuse to… give excuses. Here are your big girl pants, tailored just for you. You will thank us later!

Heidi, when strength meet kindness

Hello dear scandals,

We all feel how winter in Canada can be tough sometimes, the lack of heat and sun after few months starts to have a negative impact on our mood. So it can be a great idea to take few days out of the country: one of us went five days to Costa Rica and it was incredible. The goal of that short trip was to get away from Toronto and take some me-time… You guys know how hard workers we are and how it is difficult for us to disconnect from work. Well we have to confess, it was hard to not take the opportunity to do a boudoir shoot in paradise and work with a new lady… So we had to do it :)

We posted a message on a facebook group about a boudoir shoot idea and Heidi was one of the first to reply. Even though we did not know her, she was the one who stood out and we new from the start we wanted to shoot with her. What a meaningful encounter: her story was inspiring, we always love to hear about other business owner's experience and life. Plus she has an incredible personality, beauty… PERFECT COMBO!

Meet Heidi

Everybody has a story, I think that’s one of the things I enjoy the most about meeting people in Costa Rica. Here we are in this little beautiful country, together, talking and forming friendships, discovering how much we have in common and yet we all have a different back story about what led us here.

Costa Rica, 5 years ago

I went there for the first time to celebrate my partner’s and my 50th birthdays.  We planned a double vacation – some skiing and boarding in Whistler for the first week, and then straight to Costa Rica to learn to surf. Tamarindo….such a neat place! My partner could already surf and had tried it in many other exotic locations, but this was a first for me and I don’t even skateboard or snowboard… Yikes! Well, I survived surf camp and could actually say I could surf afterwards!

That first trip led to another and another and another, at least twice a year, enjoying the beach, training every day, surfing and always pondering eventual retirement and speculating about what little business could be started here to fill a niche.

At first we thought about a coffee shop, or more specifically, a mobile coffee cart – because at that time there were only a couple in town. Needless to say in 5 years there are probably 14 now…. so that was a good pass!

How Gilliepops was born

One thing that seemed to be lacking was treats of any sort that weren’t laden with sugar or milk and specifically cold frozen treats. Popsicles… Yes, that became the focus and ultimately Gilliepops was born, named after my late daughter, who passed away a few months after our first trip here.

Lots of brainstorming, creative thinking and marketing ideas, and in November 2017 I arrived in town with a bicycle, a cooler, my Vitamix and a couple of giant duffel bags filled with popsicles sticks, moulds, labels and packaging supplies. It was new and exciting, and at times very disappointing and stressful. I ate a lot of tuna and eggs that’s for sure but what an amazing experience! I even added gluten free baked goods to my repertoire and it seems the tourists and even locals can’t get enough of them. It’s awesome!!

Thanks to social media

Business here in Costa Rica is done differently that in North America.  It’s less formal and much of the communication is done either on Facebook or Whatsapp.

Because of the dependency on Facebook for business, I’m forced to check it daily and post often to encourage awareness of the availability of gluten free products here. This is when I saw Fanny's post about her visit to Tamarindo. I sent her a few suggestions, I think because I knew she was from Toronto. When she mentioned being a photographer and looking for someone to photograph while she was here, I jumped at the opportunity – there are almost no pictures of me here because I’m on my own. And what a beautiful place to be photographed.

Its been a couple of years since I’ve done a photo shoot and never when I wasn’t ready to compete (I’m a physique competitor), but I thought it would be nice to be captured as my regular self, my natural self, a little smoother and softer… tan lines and all…! The shoot was amazing – the view from the location we chose was so beautiful and the pictures she took are so flattering and beautiful.

I’m so grateful for the opportunity to have met one of the Scandaleuse's team, the time we got to spend together talking an sharing our stories.

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